A Walk With Death

It Has Been 35 Years Since Jfk's Passing, But The Events Of Nov. 22, 1963, Still Hang Over Dealey Plaza.

November 22, 1998|BY CRAIG DAVIS and STAFF WRITER

They stoop and read the plaque next to the street, the one with the understated inscription denoting simply that this site is a national historic landmark. They turn and stare up at the same sixth-floor window in the red brick building that looms at the corner. Then they turn and peer at the drab fence in the shadow of the trees atop the little hill.

You know what they are thinking because you have been grappling with the same mental puzzle, interlacing familiar images of history with the realities of the landscape. Did the shot come from the window up there or somewhere on the so-called Grassy Knoll? You ponder one, then the other, half expecting to glimpse a ghostly gun barrel or puff of smoke.

Even after 35 years, the mystery surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains as compelling as it was tragic.I have been plotting this pilgrimage to Dallas for years -- pardon the choice of words, but the air is leaden with intrigue in Dealey Plaza, apparitions of bogus Secret Service agents lurking behind every tree. Finally, I have come on a research mission for a novel I am writing in which the main character, who witnessed the assassination as a child, becomes entangled 30 years later with participants in the conspiracy to murder JFK.

No, I don't subscribe to the conclusion of the Warren Commission, that the assassination was the singular handiwork of Lee Harvey Oswald. Opinion polls have shown that about three-fourths of the American public shares that skepticism. Even the government-backed House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 came to the wishy-washy conclusion that JFK was "probably" the victim of a conspiracy, but let it drop there.

All that seems clear is that the demise of the nation's 35th president has become convoluted beyond hope of a conclusive determination. The irony is that the multitude of conspiracy theorists have become accomplices in that conspiracy. What surprised me was how many people are still interested.

I arrive in Dallas half expecting to be viewed as a lone nut poking about in the footprints of history. But even on a drizzly Saturday morning in February, fascination with JFK is very much alive in Dealey Plaza. Someone has placed a red carnation on the plaque marking the spot of the fatal shot and scattered the remainder of the bouquet on the granite slab of the cenotaph memorializing Kennedy a few blocks away.

The intriguing aspect of a visit to the plaza is that it has changed very little since Nov. 22, 1963, when Kennedy was gunned down in front of a lunch-hour crowd -- the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Stroll down Elm from the corner of Houston, bending left, then right toward the triple underpass, and it is easy to visualize the scene frozen in time and imagine the echoes of the gunshots while attempting to pinpoint their origin.

All of the buildings surrounding the plaza were in place at the time of the assassination. The Texas School Book Depository, from which Oswald allegedly fired all the shots directed at the motorcade, is now known as the Dallas County Administration Building. Notably, the word "allegedly" is included on the plaque on the face of the building. An anonymous scribe has etched an underline into the metal below it.

It is that seed of uncertainty and doubt, I believe, that draws so many people to this spot. There is, in part, the lingering sense of a national tragedy and the urge to pay homage to a popular fallen leader. There is also the irresistible allure of the whodunit.

Everyone who visits Dealey Plaza turns into Inspector Columbo. You tramp around the scene of the crime of the century, hands on hips, squinting, scratching your head, scrutinizing the terrain, assessing the distances, calculating the angles, pondering the possibilities. And there is always one more question. So many questions with conflicting answers in this case.

The main path of controversy leads to the infamous Grassy Knoll, the proverbial mountain of a molehill along the north side of Elm with its distinctive concrete pergola and adjacent picket fence. One can stand on the pedestal where Abraham Zapruder shot the most scrutinized 22-second snippet of film ever made, the most revealing record of the assassination, using an 8mm Bell & Howell home-movie camera. One can climb the steps that many witnesses, including police officers, dashed up immediately after the shots were fired in search of a would-be gunman. The steps lead behind the picket fence at the edge of a parking lot next to a railroad yard.